To me, previous releases of Mason City, Iowa's Why Bother? have usually been a somewhat hit-and-miss kind of affair, although the undeniable highlights no doubt made up for any instance in which the songwriting was just a tad too undercooked or the performance just didn't quite spark. Over time their hits-to-duds ratio has certainly improved though and their newest offering is hands down their strongest set of new catchy-as-fuck tunes so far, as usual melting strikingly simple '77 vibes, scraps of power pop and plenty of contemporary garage- and synth punk into an impressive succession of unstoppable hooks and melodies with quite a bit of stylictic breadth.
This neat new tape by a Los Angeles group has some deliciously noisy and hyperactive synth-/electro punk for us that transports some vague feel of the genre's '70s/'80s classics while exact matches with any of those seem kinda elusive, although i'd say Primitive Calculators and Nervous Gender are reasonably close comparisons. Above that, you may draw similarly diffuse connections to recent groups, with certain moments, bits and pieces evoking a bunch of acts as diverse as Lost Packages, ISS, Spyroids, Skull Cult and Freak Genes, plus just a bit of hybrid garage-/post punk á la Tyvek and Shark Toys in more guitar-centered tracks like Ford Branca.
An awesome dungeon-themed artifact comes to us from a Montreal group who take a major leap from their more purist black metal-leaning 2020 debut tape to a more ambitious punk-flavored endeavor that also aligns pretty well with the more blackened subsection of the current dungeon punk landscape, most notable last winter's Bloody Keep LP and the likes of Warlock Corpse or blackened synth punks Drýsildjöfull, though Conifère certainly put their very own flavor on their epic crusades by way of a strong late nineties post- and emocore undercurrent being the common thread running all the way through this tape.
The successor to these Melbourne punks' excellent car-themed EP from past December has them considerably streamlining and improving the structural foundation of their songs while also diversifying their musical spectrum, giving them a more post punk-ish feel overall yet this is also the most noisy and concentrated attack we've heard of them so far, which even holds true in the case of the midtempo post punk jam TV Screen, while closing track Tough Cunt still closes things out with a bit of hardcore energy akin to their previous material. Anyway, i'm reminded of so much goodness of the last decade-plus by the likes of Romance, Vexx, Cel Ray, Gen Pop, Warp, Downtown Boys, Fugitive Bubble and Warm Bodies just to name a few... plus maybe just a hint of old aussie noise rock / post punk greats Fungus Brains? Yeah, this is some highly combustible shit for sure!
Following up on their stellar previous EP, this (probably) Austin, Texas group delivers a way more crude and unpolished - yet no less exciting - batch of new tunes located in the more eccentric spheres of the garage-/synth-/eggpunk spectrum. Less catchy overall but more high-energy instead, this makes for a more than serviceable successor to a plainly sensational record that's been a decidedly tough act to follow anyway and even as the lesser of the two, it's still a freakin' increadible bit of eccentric noise to be perfectly honest.
Somehow the kids appear to be into shoegaze again in recent years, yet there hasn't been all that much in the recent wave that i could really get excited about as most contemporary acts seem perfectly content with creating a pleasant but completely interchangeable bed of light ambient noise to fall asleep in, while lacking the tunes and noise, the punk propulsion and energy of previous generations. A completely different beast though is this second EP of Philadelphia group Mopar Stars, reviving in particular the spirit of the likes of Swervedriver, Pale Saints and early Catherine Wheel while also extending their sonic palette with flourishes of elegant, classic late seventies / early eighties power pop songwriting excellence and not least i'm positively reminded a lot of the early, late-eighties works of UK noise pop act Mega City Four.
Always great fun, a new EP courtesy of Ukraine's best address for quirky and catchy eggpunk goodness that evokes the aesthetic pillars of Prison Affair, Beer, Set-Top Box, Autobahns, Goblin Daycare, Midgee... yeah, this particular sub-branch of the genre is shaping up to become a remarkably international affair and it's such a joy to watch it all play out over time.
Now if you thought the 2022 EP of this Montreal group was kinda weird and bananas, Pressure Pin be like: "Hold my beer" 'cos you've seen nothing yet! For their second EP, they considerably raise the bar both in terms of sophistication and of unpredictable chaos and mayhem in their totally nuts compositions whose rough characteristics hover somewhere around the spheres of garage-, synth-, art- and eggpunk with a pronounced element of devocore, all the while being hellbent on nuking the confines of those genres respectively. This kind of eclectic anything-goes approach reminds me most of recent works by Trashdog and Checkpoint, though if you take it one stylistic ingredient at a time, you might also find bits and pieces of the '90s-midi-style pop excursions of Metdog, the Devo-isms of recent Isotope Soap, the sparkling joy of Snooper and the quirky, catchy garage-/art punk explosions of Smirk and Cherry Cheeks. These dudes put more ideas and inspiration in a single tune than your average garage act does in a whole album.
Another awesome EP by that that completely off-the-rails Los Angeles hair punk / egg metal act cementing their status as the severely brain damaged evil cousins of electro punk greats ISS and Heavy Metal, combining an absurd stylistic premise with lyrical contents of only the most deranged quiet-part-out-loud / "Did he really just say that?" variety into a thoroughly ridiculous and fun bit of delightful chaos.
The restless Berlin post punk scene delivers yet another high-class artifact - brought to us by Cincinnati, Ohio specialists Future Shock Recordings - on which they masterfully balance a good deal of dark abysses and atmospheric expanse against an endless succession of concentrated, precise impacts. On one hand, this stuff unmistakably carries the signature of the Berlin scene and groups like Pigeon, Glaas, Clock Of Time, Pretty Hurts, Kalte Hand and Liiek. Yet, i also sense a close kinship to such anarcho-influenced US groups like Kaleidoscope, Straw Man Army and Fantasma, the recent LP of british punks Subdued, Sydney's Negative Gears... and a bit of Criminal Code maybe? Anyway, this is some first rate shit right here!
